Spirit of Kavanagh's will soon be resurrected with opening of Sullivan's on Chapel

Downtown New Haven can always use a friendly gathering spot where "townies" and "gownies" can mingle, and soon well have it in the resurrected Kavanaghs.

Randall Beach

Published 12:00 am, Friday, October 17, 2003

Three months ago I reported the end of Kavanaghs, a Chapel Street institution for 25 years. Co-owner Frank Conti died in April and Mike Kavanagh, the other owner, is in poor health and unable to go it alone.

Enter the Sullivans. Charlene Sullivan, who tended bar at Kavanaghs for nearly 10 years, is getting together with her sisters, Pattie Mastriano and Cathy Amento, to open a worthy successor.

The Sullivans target date is Jan. 1, 2004. Happy New Year!

"Itll be pretty much what it (Kavanaghs) was," Mastriano said. "An Irish bar with pub food and all the good cheer that went along with it."

Who could argue with that? I only regret the place hasnt re-opened in time for October baseball, when Kavanaghs was one of the best spots in town to sit at the bar, watch the passing parade and soak up baseball atmosphere.

Charlene Sullivan told me, "Well keep it nostalgic." And so I began lobbying the three sisters to retain the large, dramatic mural photo that shows Yale halfback Denny McGill scoring a touchdown against Princeton in 1956.

At first they made no commitments. But Thursday Mastriano told me they had agreed to keep it there. They also want to invite McGill to their grand opening.

I said I will try to help find McGill, who according to the Yale alumni directory is now a municipal court judge in Jersey City, N.J.

When I last spoke to McGill, in 1988, he was heartened to hear the mural was still up there. He said Yale Bowl was packed with 67,000 fans that day in 1956. Yale beat Princeton, 42-20.

The Sullivans had hoped to call their venue Sullivans, but there are a few joints which beat them to it.

So they will go with Sullivans on Chapel.

Locals with longer memories remember when that same space was Jocko Sullivans. There was sawdust on the floor, good food, drink and cheer and even live performances by folksingers such as Tom Paxton.

McGill told me Jocko Sullivan took him under his wing when he was at Yale.

On his graduation day, McGill said, he gave Sullivan a watch with the inscription: "Thanks for everything. To me, youve been like a second father."

Sullivan was buried wearing that watch.

After Michael Hoffman, a syndicated columnist now living in Gahanna, Ohio, read my column about the passing of Kavanaghs, he wrote to me about his very special memory of the place in its Jocko Sullivans era.

"I met my wife (Barbara Bjorklund) there on a blind date in 1964," he recalled. "I used that wooden phone booth (a corner fixture) a few days earlier to try to get out of that blind date."

"I remember as clearly as if it happened yesterday, walking into Jockos the night I was to meet her," he said.

"After entering, I headed toward the far end of the bar, looking across the partition that stretched the length of the bar to see whether I could spot my date.

"I saw this stunning dark-haired woman and I thought how nice it would be if that woman could be my blind date. And she was.

"I had just come from the New Haven Arena, where Id done the color for the first Blades exhibition game of the year on WAVZ and I was still high on the excitement of the broadcast. I talked forever and I knew shed never want to see me again.

"I was wrong. Less than a year later we were married. My wife died on July 23, 1998."

Hoffman concluded, "Thanks for the reminder of how nicely that first date turned out."

One can only imagine all of the other stories and relationships that have come out of Jocko Sullivans and Kavanaghs. Many more will be created at Sullivans on Chapel.